Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
We are so much like the disciples, aren’t we? We always think we know what’s best, and if only God would just get with the program and do what we tell him to, we’d be filled with joy and gladness. God begs to differ with us, however. He insists that He is the one who knows what is best for us, and so instead of giving us what we want, He insists on giving us what we need.
The disciples thought that what was best was for Jesus to remain with them in the same way He had lived with them for three years. When Jesus tells them that this is not going to happen, their faces fall and their hearts hurt. But Jesus doesn’t let the fact that He is disappointing them get in the way of giving them a great gift. He tells them flat out: “It is to your advantage that I go away, because if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you.” By the Helper, of course, He meant the Holy Spirit.
And I suppose they might have wondered: Well, what’s so great about the Holy Spirit? He seems a poor second to having what we want – and what we want is to go on having you with us the way you’ve been with us up till now. We fall into the same foolish thinking every time we think: “oh, if only we could have seen our Lord Jesus and have walked with Him – wouldn’t that be wonderful? And what a stronger Christian I would have been if only I had had such an experience!”
Yes, good thing for us too that God gives us what we need and not what we want. What we need is the gift of the Holy Spirit Himself, and Jesus tells us why we need Him. “And when He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” Now what on earth does Jesus mean by that? I mean, don’t we all know what sin is? Sin is when we do what God forbids or fail to do what He commands, right? And as for righteousness, well we all know that righteousness is simply living the kind of life that is upright, that is obedient to God. And judgment? Well, we all know that God will judge us in the end for how we have lived. What do we need the Holy Spirit for to understand such simple things?
Ah, but it is just such thinking which shows how far we stray when we use our natural religious self to try to make sense out of God and the Bible, instead of listening to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes to convict the world of sin, Jesus says, “because they do not believe in me.” That is, only the Holy Spirit can open eyes to see that the sin of all sin, the root sin of our very nature, is that we don’t trust in Jesus, that we don’t rely on what He has done for us and promises to us, that instead we try to rely on ourselves. That this is what sin is in its very essence. It’s distrust before it is disobedience. Without the Holy Spirit a person never comes to see this, because the natural man does not discern the things of the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit comes to convict the world of righteousness, says Jesus, “because I go to the Father and you see Me no more.” That is, only the Holy Spirit can open your eyes to see that righteousness is not to be found in what you do or refrain from doing. That righteousness is only found in this: that through Jesus’s suffering, death, resurrection and ascension, He goes to the Father on behalf of the human race and stands before His Father as the Sole Righteous One, so that all who are in Him by Baptism and faith, are seen by the Father as righteous. Neither the disciples nor we could ever have grasped this without the Holy Spirit – but the Spirit is sent to us precisely so that we might know the things freely given us by God – that Christ is made our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.
The Holy Spirit comes to convict the world of judgment, says Jesus, “because the ruler of this world is judged.” That is, only the Holy Spirit can open your eyes to see that God’s wrath over your sin cannot harm you when you are tucked safely into Christ by Baptism, for Christ has weathered the storm of that wrath for you on the Cross. So, when the ruler of this world, Satan, whose very name means the accuser, comes to lay his charges against you and condemn you before the bar of God and demand your life-blood as his own, his case against you is summarily tossed out of court – he has no standing, because the penalty for your sin has already been paid and paid in full. And so the ruler of this world is judged – judged as having no claim anymore upon you. Not now, not ever.
People loved by God, without the light of the Holy Spirit you and I would understand none of these things. And so, our Jesus sends us what we need, not what we want. He sends us the Holy Spirit who alone can lead us into all truth, as He takes the things of Jesus and declares them to us as our very own. As He glorifies Jesus, by turning our focus away from us and our plans and dreams and worries and fears, and points us squarely to the Savior and His gifts for us in Baptism, in Absolution, in Eucharist, and in the preaching of the Gospel. As He says: “for you, child! All for love of you, that your Savior did this. Glory be to Him forever for such great love.”
THAT is why we need so desperately the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who never speaks on His own authority, but simply seeks to bring glory to Jesus by declaring to us all the free gifts which God has given to us in our Lord Jesus. What can we say in response to all that but: “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.” Amen.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
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